Skate Updated Impressions

EA's upcoming skateboarding game, Skate, is basically done. It's slated to ship next week on the Xbox 360 and in a couple of weeks on the PlayStation 3. For all intents and purposes, development work has ceased. The game is ready for prime time. With its release looming, we opted to take one last look at the game straight from EA's Summer Showcase.

Our previous coverage of the game ought to tell you most of what you need to know about Skate. It's aiming to be a more realistic take on the skateboarding game than the genre monolith Tony Hawk series. Its control scheme relies heavily on flicks of the right and left analog sticks to pull off various tricks. The whole game takes place in an open-ended city chock full of surfaces you can skate on, as well as a variety of events and challenges you can take on. If you haven't already, you really should download the Xbox 360 demo of the game because it gives you an excellent idea of what to expect from the final game.

Though little of what we saw at the Summer Showcase was new compared with what we'd previously seen of the game, we did get an up close look at the X Games events. The game apparently culminates with you participating in both a street course and the megaramp event competitions. The street course is about what you would expect, but the megaramp is truly intimidating. Remember that 50-foot fall Jake Brown took at this year's X Games events? The one where he landed so hard his shoes popped off? Imagine repeatedly facing that same height and the sickening thud every time you screw up a trick. Good thing this is only a video game.

Skate's presentation seems to have come together quite nicely. Skating around the city seems pretty seamless, despite the relative size of the city. The designers seem to have done a good job of making this city a skater's paradise without getting ridiculous about it. All the scenery looks realistic and fits within the context of a major metropolis. Skater models look great, and the animations seem spot-on for each unique trick. Some of the falling animations looked a little goofy, specifically the way skaters go into super rag-doll mode when they hit. But that aside, the look of the game is quite impressive at first blush.

Skateboarding fans should keep an eye out for our review of Skate, which should hit the site right around the game's release date. Stay tuned.